Posts tagged ‘1979’

As mentioned a couple of entries back, I’ve been seeking out period soundtrack LPs with a punk and/or new wave slant. There weren’t nearly as many of them as the youth-marketed cinema of the era would lead one to believe. Outside of some cult outliers and scene-focused documentaries, the licensed soundtrack thing for teen flicks […]

While K-Tel’s discography of pre-1985 compilations is deep and wide (and a confusing mess to wade through), it is a finite system. I’ve spent over a year sifting through it, adjusting and re-adjusting my search parameters, and trying to find a few promising grains of wheat among the massive volume of chaff. There have been […]

Six weeks have passed since the previous installment of this feature, which was more than enough time to freshen up my pool of midlist compilations released by the Winnipeg Wonder. Having exhausted the vein of direct nostalgic recollection, I’ve begun casting my net a little further from familiar shores. It hasn’t been an easy or […]

If you’ve been reading this site, following my twitter feed, or engaged in conversation with me, then you’ll be well aware about my long-standing fascination with the “death of disco.” It was a social-cultural shift wrapped up in musical one, whose impact still echoes through the present day. It was the culmination of multiple interwoven […]

Discogs’ chronology of K-Tel releases doesn’t separate by regional markets, which makes sense from an archival standpoint if not an ease-of-use one. It can make it difficult to pinpoint items of interest, especially during those high-volume years of most interest to me. I’ve sifted through the listings a half dozen times already, yet each pass […]

My decision last fall to pick up a turntable had nothing to do with audio fidelity or “warmer” sounds or affected hipness. I got back into records because Maura scored a near complete set of Time-Life’s Swing Era compilations at an estate sale and because I thought it would be a nice way to get […]

Play-Doh’s “Fuzzy Pumper” Monster Barbershop was one of the toy industry’s many attempts to channel children’s fixation with familiar horror archetypes into a non-threatening plaything. The playset’s real horrors were reserved for the parents who gazed upon the sanity-blasting state of the living room carpet and the phantasmagoric nightmares which emerged from the family dog’s […]

It’s 1979 and the Sears Wish Book wants people to give the greatest gift of all — HOME DISCO TECHNOLOGY. I guess Steve Dahl’s block on WLUP didn’t carry as far as Santa’s Workshop. While I feel a strong sense of after-the-fact pity for any poor soul who got this stuff in their holiday haul, […]

This week’s installment is both out-of-sequence and features an LP technically part of my collection. It was purchased in the summer of 1990 by my little brother during the same trip which yielded this essential classic. The record is Steve Martin’s Comedy Is Not Pretty… …released in 1979. My brother was hepped to the comedian’s […]